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Hillary Clinton vows ‘AIDS-free generation’ at conference

Clinton said a goal is to put an end to mother-to-child transmission by 2015. | AP Photo

Although treatment has already reduced transmission of HIV from infected mother to child, the drugs don’t reach every family that needs it. Clinton announced the U.S. would invest an additional $80 million for innovative approaches to getting care to this sometimes hard to reach population. The goal is to reach 1.5 million mothers by next year and by 2015, “eliminating mother-to-child transmission — getting that number to zero,” Clinton said.

She announced $40 million in PEPFAR funding for an effort to circumcise about 500,000 men in South Africa, building on existing programs elsewhere.

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“Let there be no mistake, the United States is accelerating its work on these three fronts” toward an AIDS-free generation, she said, although she acknowledged that it would take time.

“That moment is still in the distance, but we know what road we need to take,” Clinton said. “We are closer to that destination than we’ve ever been.”

And Clinton was clear that the near-term goal is an AIDS-free generation. Defeating the HIV virus itself will take longer.

“HIV may be with us into the future, until we find a cure, a vaccine,” she said. “But the disease that HIV causes need not be with us.”

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, who spoke at the conference before Clinton, made a similar point. The virus itself remains unconquerable for now. But the progress in treating the disease it causes has been “stunning,” he said.

The median survival of an AIDS patient in the early 1980s was six months to eight months, he said, adding those were the “darkest days” of his career. With current treatments, a newly diagnosed 25-year-old can expect to live a further 50 years, Fauci said, recounting the major scientific advances since the virus was identified. Still, eradicating the virus faces major obstacles.

“I’m telling you a lot of good news about science,” he said. “But we still have challenges — challenges in the arena of vaccines, challenges in the arena of cure.”

But that would make one fewer group on whom Pat Robertson could pass judgement and castigate for their immoral behavior, thus receiving God's justified wrath. I really think Clinto should take into consideration the effect her speeches could have on a fine and upstanding bigot like Robertson.

That's real nice,Hillary, but how about we eradicate AIDS by getting to the root cause,which is the perverted and depraved behavior that spreads it.AIDS is one of the few totally preventable diseases known to man and the sooner we stop the kind of behavior that spreads it and stop glorifying homosexuality,the main way it is spread,the sooner we will be on our way to eradicating this scourge forever.

But AIDS is spread by homosexuality, promiscuity, and drug use. So give us your plan for how you're going to deal with THAT. Especially when the Democratic party plan for dealing with all of those is to encourage more of it.

AIDS is NOT spread by homosexuality. It is spread by promiscuity no matter what your sexual orientation is. Most of the new cases are amoung hetrosexuals. One of the reasons for the decline in AIDS rates amoung gay people is that we are now seeing gay people being encouraged to form monogamous relationships. This is one of the huge benefits to society of the growing acceptance of same sex marriage.

Per the CDC ( http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/... ) almost 60% of AIDS cases in this country are caused by male on male sex. The federal budget includes $20.5 billion for domestic HIV/AIDS programs and another $6.5 billion for foreign programs, but only $6 billion for research, prevention and treatment of all types of cancer. The choice of thousands of gay men to engage in high risk sex sucks up a hugely disproportionate share of taxpayer funds, while almost 40,000 women die every year in this country from breast cancer, through no behavioral choice or fault of their own. How many thousands of innocent cancer victims could survive if the federal government provided funding for cancer programs that was at least equal to the funding currently devoted to HIV/AIDS? How can we possibly reconcile over $20 billion for 17,000 AIDS deaths in the U.S. and only $6 billion for almost 570,000 cancer deaths per year?

Sally Ride just died of pancreatic cancer at age 61. If the government cared as much about cancer as it does about HIV/AIDS, maybe she would still be with us.

CAlib74: The numbers you site are since the beginning of the epidemic and US only. In recent years there have been far more cases through heterosexual contact. If you had any medical backround you'd understand there is a big difference between cancer and AIDS. Cancer has been around for thousands of years and there is very little new knowledge to be gained from further research while AIDS is a relatively new disease with greater potential to eliminate.